UPDATE 2-Qatar Airways to defer A380 on wing worry

DUBAI, April 30 (Reuters) - Qatar Airways will deferdelivery of its A380 superjumbos until it gets more detailsabout wing cracks on the Airbus aircraft, its chiefexecutive said on Monday.

Europe has ordered regular checks of the superjumbo fleetafter safety engineers found cracks in a handful of wingcomponents of most aircraft in service.

"Qatar Airways will have to defer scheduled deliveries ofits A380s from October 2013 until we have a clear position onthe issue surrounding wing cracks which are under process ofmodification by Airbus," Chief Executive Akbar al Baker said ata Dubai travel show.

Qatar has ordered 10 A380s, the world's largest passengerjet. In January, Al Baker said he was confident Airbus would fixthe cracks on its flagship aircraft but did not rule outdelaying delivery if the problem persisted..

"I hope they will solve the problem...they are working veryhard on it. There is a possibility for us to defer, yes. Ifthere is no permanent solution found then we will have todefer," Al Baker said on Monday.

Airbus said last week it was slowing down production of theworld's largest aircraft as it develops a long-term solution tothe cracks in brackets inside the wings but insisted it wouldstick to its schedule of delivering a total of 30 A380s thisyear. It says the A380 is safe to fly..

"The root cause is now well understood and we are proceedingwith selection of the final fix concept, which is targeted to beavailable in the fourth quarter of 2012," spokesman StefanSchaffrath said by email on Monday.

"We have met with Qatar Airways and will be meeting themagain to discuss the process as we are doing with othercustomers. As usual the details of those customer talks areconfidential," he added.

Al Baker said the airline would imminently order 10 aircraftfrom Canadian planemaker Bombardier Inc. to bolsterits corporate jet business. The order is valued at $700 million.

The airline operates a corporate jet business, QatarExecutive, and has expressed interest in Bombardier CRJ jets. AlBaker said last month Qatar had however suspended discussions tobuy Bombardier's larger CSeries, which aims to compete with thebest-selling models of medium-haul Airbus and Boeing jets.

SPANAIR DEAL

Qatar Airways along with rivals Emirates andEtihad Airways have been on breakneck expansion and are focusedon transforming the region into the new hub for global aviation.

The state-backed Gulf carriers have bought stakes inEuropean carriers with Etihad buying almost 30 percent in AirBerlin and Qatar Airways acquiring a share in Cargolux

Al Baker said he had pulled out of talks with Spanair afterSpanish regulators said state aid given to the loss-makingcarrier had to be repaid. Spanair halted operations in January.

"The only reason we pulled out of Spanair is when state-aidgot involved. Regulators said all state aid received by Spanairneeded to be paid back. We are not interested in such business,"he said, but added that the Spanish airline had huge potentialand would have added a lot of value for Qatar Airways.

Al Baker said his airline aimed to cover 170 destinationsand have an equal number of aircraft in the next three years.

He said the region will only have two dominant airlines,suggesting that Etihad will not be on that list.

"There will be two dominant carriers in the Gulf....QatarAirways and Emirates."

He also left the door open to joining alliances like BritishAirways' oneworld. "Whenever an alliance invites us, wewill consider it. But we have not got any offers yet."

The comments come after British Airways and Iberiaboss Willie Walsh made an informal pitch in public remarks forGulf carriers to join the alliance.

Alliances were set up in the 1990s to help airlines takeadvantage of each other's marketing and traffic in the face oftightly controlled bilateral traffic rights, but so far the Gulfcarriers have refrained from joining as they build big networks.